IJU THOMAS
PERSONAL DETAILS
Nationality
:
Post Code
:
Driving License :
British
London WC2H 7AS
Full and clean
E-mail : ijuthomas@gmail.com
Mobile : 07515 137 123
Other : 020 77665209
Linkedin :http://uk.linkedin.com/in/ijuthomas
EDUCATION & QUALIFICATIONS
2000
1996
Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration with dual specialisation in
Finance and IT systems. Two year full time MBA equivalent program – (ICFAI
Business School)
Bachelor of Commerce Degree (Sacred Heart College)
2011
Project Management Professional (Project Management Institute, USA)
PROFILE
A Business Analyst and certified PMP (PRINCE 2 equivalent) with 10+ years experience in
various areas of Banking and Financial Services spanning Investment Banking, Private
Banking / Wealth Management and Core Banking. Experienced in the functions of Business
Analysis, Project Management and Testing. Has professional expertise in requirements
gathering / documenting, Gap Analysis, Business process flow mapping / charting,
implementation and methodologies such as Waterfall and Agile.
Has worked within teams as well as individually to manage Stakeholder's expectations.
Expertise in identifying business pain points, priorities and working well under pressure.
Proven ability to interface between business and technology teams, multi task and co-ordinate
delivery and implementation within cost and timelines. Excellent communication and
management skills and an eye for details. Displays a positive, can do attitude.
Seeks contract work being immediately available for both interviews and starts in London
and throughout the UK.
SKILL SUMMARY:
Business Analysis:
Business Process Modelling, Business Process Flow charting and
Reengineering, UML, Use Cases, Stakeholder Management,
Requirement Gathering, Reports, Requirements Traceability Matrix,
AS-IS, TO-BE, Gap Analysis, Target Operating Model (TOM),
SWOT Analysis, Business Requirements Documentation, Scoping
Document Design, Workshop facilitation, System Integrated
Testing, User Acceptance Testing, Root Cause analysis, Data
analysis, Data Feeds analysis, Good Knowledge of UML
Techniques, Risk Management, MS - Visio, Excel, Project.
Project Management:
PMBOK, PMP (PRINCE2 equivalent), Agile, Waterfall, Planning,
Estimation and Budgeting, Project Scheduling and Project Risk
Management, Change Management.
Soft Skills:
Excellent Communication skills – verbal and written, Ability to
manage senior stakeholders, Leadership, Presentation, Team player,
Positive attitude, Can-do-spirit, Training, Attention to details,
Continuous learning.
Private Banking /
Wealth Management:
Order entry and Processing systems, Credit and Collateral
Management systems, Reporting and Finance MIS systems, KYC,
AML, Tax, Sanctions Screening.
Investment Banking
Equities, FX, OTC, ETD Derivatives, Trade Capture, Pricing,
Settlement, End to End product flows across Front, Middle and
Back office, FX Spot, FX Forward, FX Options, NDF, Swaps,
Reconciliation, Prime Brokerage, Novation, P&L Attribution.
REFERENCES AVAILABLE ON REQUEST
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IJU THOMAS
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
Jul 2002 – May 2013
Polaris Financial Technology Ltd, London
Polaris FT is a leading Financial Technology company that offers software services, consulting
and products for the Banking and Financial Services Sector across the globe with its European
HQ based in London. Polaris is the chosen partner for 9 out of the top 10 global banks, Citi
being its largest client.
Citibank, London
March 2011 to May 2013
Business Analyst / Engagement Manager
Employed to manage the complete portfolio of projects that Polaris handles for Citi Private
Bank, Europe. The team size was 85 team members (onsite-offshore mix) with 4 project
managers across 4 key system enhancement projects (Order entry and processing system,
Credit and Collateral Monitoring system, Finance MI system and FX systems). The offshore
team was located in Chennai and Hyderabad in India. The onsite teams were in London, Zurich
Responsibilities:
 Gathered, analysed and documented requirements (BRD) from onsite user community
and explained the requirements to offshore teams once the BRD was signed off by
users. Functional Requirements Document (FRD) was prepared as a next step.
 Managing the day-to-day interactions with client teams and leading discussions with
and presentations to senior client management of the private bank.
 Conducting pre-UAT testing on deliverables from offshore teams before opening up
systems for User testing. Agile methodology was primarily adapted.
 Tracking requirements using traceability matrix with the HP Quality centre tool.
 Completed Impact Analysis Document (IAD) of the recent regulatory changes due to
Dodd Frank, FATCA, RDR, MiFID, EMIR.
 Interacted with third party vendors of Citi (Oracle, IBM, Ab Initio)
 Co-ordinating with offshore delivery teams to ensure that client experiences a standard
and professional delivery end to end across all projects from the multiple delivery units
and acting as the single point of contact onsite for the customer with regard to any
project deliverable.
Achievements:
 As a result of the proactive approach adopted on requirements analysis and delivery
quality, client satisfaction level ratings increased by 30% and a new global project
worth more than $1 million was recently awarded to the company against competition.
Skills Snapshot: Business Analysis, Data analysis, Agile, Waterfall, Workshop facilitation,
Risk Management, Requirements gathering, Traceability Matrix, Gap analysis, Project
Management, PMP (PRINCE 2 equivalent), Workshop facilitation, Presentation, Training,
Stakeholder Management, SLA Management.
Citibank, London
Feb 2010 – Mar 2011
Business Analyst / Project Manager
Employed as a Business Analyst / Project Manager for the Capital Markets Technology
Division. Liaised with senior stakeholders in business and technology as well as multiple
project teams (10 to 15 team members) across London, New York and Singapore from a
projects requirements perspective.
FX Trading System Rollout
 Responsible for the analysis and documentation of FX flows across multiple systems.
 Rolled out Citi’s market leading Forex systems to Citi private bank trading desks.
 Worked with business users including Foreign exchange traders and middle office,
back office and delivery work streams to arrive at optimal process and system solutions
for new products rollout.
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IJU THOMAS
Built relationships with project stakeholders to arrive at project objectives and scope.
Prioritised and understood business requirements across affected business areas and
documented these project artefacts.
Arrived at tactical and strategic solutions for critical business requirements.
Interfaced between business and technology teams for creation of BRD, FRD, Gap
document, Requirements Traceability matrix, user testing, user training and
implementation.
Achievements:
 Based on my detailed understanding, analysis and depiction of the FX workflows, I
was able to suggest tactical solutions to the business needs thereby helping business
achieve faster time to market and increase in revenues by freeing up more of trader’s
time that was earlier spent on system inputs (time saving of around 6 months for a key
requirement).
Skills Snapshot: Business Analyst, UML Reports, Use cases, Business Process Flow Analysis,
Requirements Gathering, Gap analysis, BRD, ETD Derivatives, Stakeholder Management, Risk
Management, Change Management, Project Management, Straight Through Processing (STP),
FX Spot, FX Forward, Swaps, NDF, Premium Deposits. Settlements, Reconciliation.
Citibank, London
Sep 2008 – Feb 2010
Relationship Manager
Employed as a Relationship Manager for the Polaris – Citi Private Bank Europe Tech
Relationship. Liaised with a 50 member delivery team in an onsite-offshore mix model. Team
based onsite in Zurich, London and offshore in Hyderabad and Chennai, India.
Responsibilities
 Day to day interactions with Citi technology project managers to ensure that their
technology requirements and objectives were met to their expectations.
 Exploring jointly with Citi Private Bank technology project managers and Polaris
offshore technology development teams as to how Polaris could leverage its experience
and expertise of working with Citi Private Bank Technology for over a decade to
continuously improve application development processes and add value to CPB
technology initiatives and offerings.
 Responsible for revenue forecasts for the account for planning and budgeting purposes
and ownership of the targets.
 I was also tasked with improving existing service levels and ensuring that Citi
technology project managers were educated on the whole suite of Capital market
specific products available from Polaris.
Achievements:
Achieved a 20% growth in revenues from the account due to efficient mining of the account
during a challenging period of growth due to the credit crisis.
Skills Snapshot: Relationship Management, Account Management, Account Mining, Planning,
Budgeting, Forecasting, Presentation, Stakeholder Management. Project Risk Management.
Citibank, London
Nov 2005 – Aug 2008
Business Analyst
Employed as a Sole Business Analyst in the FX Options Trading Technology Division working
along with a team of 6 developers onsite and interacting with a 15 member offshore team based
in Hyderabad, India.
Enhancements to FX Options Trading system
 Discussing, eliciting and finalising requirements with business (Forex traders) and
operations users (middle and back office) for the ongoing major enhancements to the
FOX OTC Derivatives trading system.
 Involved in end to end analysis for integration with Prime Brokerage systems.
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IJU THOMAS
Defining product workflows for new product rollouts in consultation with middle and
back office teams and detailing the business requirements to the development teams.
 Worked on Agile project methodology, design of test plans, UAT co-ordination,
executing UAT on behalf of users and quality control as per Citigroup standards.
 Overall stakeholder management, project budgeting and project tracking using Citi’s
proprietary Project Management tools (Planview)
 Ownership for all project documents i.e. BRD, FRD, Traceability Matrix, preparation
of test plans and test cases, helping testing teams to automate test scripts.
Achievements:
 Instrumental in defining an end to end process flow with checkpoints for minor/major
enhancements which were adopted across the division thereby improving efficiency
resulting in faster release cycles.
Skills Snapshot: Business Analysis, Business Requirements Documentation (BRD),
Requirements Gathering, Agile, Reports, User Acceptance Testing, Quality Centre, OTC
Derivatives, FX Spot, FX Forward, Swaps, FX Options, NDF, Dual Currency Deposits,
Traceability Matrix, Business Process Analysis, Change Management, Stakeholder
Management. Counterparty mnemonics, Novation, P&L Attribution, Confirmations.
Citibank, Zurich, Singapore
Sep 2004 – Jul 2005
Business Analyst
Employed as a Business Analyst in a project involving convergence of systems used by
Citigroup Private Bank across its European operations with a view to having these migrated
and centrally supported from Singapore
Migration – Multibranch system (MB) to Systematics / Enhanced Banking System (EBS)
 Gathering and documenting requirements (BRD, FRD, Gap document) and acting as a
point of contact between business / operations users and the technology teams.
 Involved in data conversion logic finalisation, Swiss data secrecy, KYC, AML aspects.
 Gap study between the new system and the legacy system.
 Business process reengineering (BPR)-flow mapping / analysis (using Business
Process Flow diagrams and use cases), to ensure that the new system captures all the
existing banking operations processes. The existing system had interfaces with more
than 50 satellite systems and it was critical for the success of the project to ensure that
all existing feeds/functionality was mapped accurately.
 Review of UAT test cases and co-ordination of User Acceptance Testing, UAT Test
plans, Production Assurance testing and user training on the new system.
 Part of the post implementation fix team that helped iron out teething problems on
transition go live.
Achievements:
 Sped up the system transition process by developing detailed process flows and testing
scenarios on behalf of business for each division. This contributed to reduction in
delays and thereby cost savings as a result of identifying and eliminating duplication.
Skills Snapshot: Business Analysis, Business Requirements Documentation (BRD),
Requirements Gathering, Business Process Re-engineering, Straight through Processing (STP),
Gap Analysis, Change Management, UML Use Case diagrams, Reports, Process Flow
Diagrams, User Acceptance Testing, Traceability Matrix, Quality Centre, Business Process
Analysis, Stakeholder Management.
EARLY CAREER HISTORY:
Mar 2004 – Aug 2004
Business Analyst
Man Group (Man Investments)
Oct 2003 – Mar 2004
Business Analyst
Citi Global Consumer Bank
Jul 2002 – Sep 2003
Business Analyst
Commercial Bank of Kuwait
Sep 2000 – Jul 2002
Analyst
Citibank (thru Cygnus Software)
May 2000 – Sep 2000
Consultant
Anush Consultants
Apr 1998 – Apr 2000 Full Time Study for 2 years – Post graduation
Aug 1996 – Apr 1998 Assistant Manager (Operations) Ivy and Company Stock Brokers.
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